


The Third Return of Kara Thrace

by useyourlove



Series: The Five Returns of Kara Thrace [3]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/useyourlove/pseuds/useyourlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara finally comes back to Lee after New Caprica. Takes place just after "Unfinished Business."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Third Return of Kara Thrace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Challenge 002](http://the-applecart.livejournal.com/1886.html). Originally posted [here](http://the-applecart.livejournal.com/1886.html?thread=109150#t109150). [Also posted on LJ at wartytoads](http://wartytoads.livejournal.com/9005.html).

The third time she comes back from the dead is the first time she doesn't come back to him. She doesn't come back to any of them--not really. She stands on the flight deck, her _husband_ behind her, and she ignores them all--her face bereft, her posture broken. The momentary flare of emotion in his breast could be anything from relief, to elation, to love, to blistering hatred. He can't even tell. But it all fades back to a dull ache within seconds. Starbuck is still lost.

After that, he watches her. He's not supposed to. He can feel Dee's scrutinizing eyes scouring his entire body any time Kara Thrace is around. But he can't help it. He's studying her, taking her in. She's alternately defiant, defeated, blustering, and broken. It pisses him off.

He finds every opportunity he can to goad her. He grounds her. He gets in her face to scream at her. He watches for a reaction and takes a sick pleasure in it when her anger and her hatred and her guilt finally flare across her face and she bursts. He thinks she's going to hit him but she just yells. He wants her to hit him. Wants the excuse. And it makes him even angrier that he never gets it.

Something is wrong. He shouldn't give a flying frak, but he always does. And he wants it to be made of pain. Whoever or whatever stuck a knife in her gut, he wants to twist that knife just a little bit more. Get a little of his own back, anyhow.

The request form slides into view on his desk. "Married Quarters, Kara Thrace." He feels as if the knife he's been trying to twist has been turned back on himself. He doesn't even read it. He just marks it "Denied" and moves on. He doesn't even begin to try to sort out what makes him do it. Jealousy, or spite, or anger, or revenge. Frankly, he doesn't care. He just knows it feels good. When an identical form shows up on his desk a week later he smirks and gives it the same treatment.

The Dance is a good thing. He tries to tell himself that. But he knows that he's been testing her too hard lately, shoving her back against the wall. He's waiting for her to turn and fight like a cornered fox, and he knows it's going to happen. Probably here. Probably tonight. He wants it to. He's begging for it to. The tension is getting to be too much for him. Who ever knew it was just as hard to hate Kara Thrace as it was to love her? Who ever knew there wasn't any damn difference?

And so they dance, lobbing barbs at one another like foot soldiers tossing grenades. There are no explosions. There are no bells to guide them home. There is nothing here but the sweat, and the blood, and the bruises, and the pain. Always the pain. It feels so good to get it all onto their bodies instead of stuck inside with no where to go. The pressure valve is faulty.

She's so tired she won't even lift her arms to punch. He lands a good one on her--two, three--and she barely tries to defend herself. He sees it in her eyes then--how lost she is even now. He sees her crying out for him, begging him, pleading but forever too stubborn to say the words. That's always what it comes down to with her--words. It's impossible to capture what they have between them in the petty inadequacies of language. When he tries is when they fail. And so he doesn't even try. He's not angry anymore. All of that's gone now. He just wants her. He wants her snide remarks, and her crude jokes, and her disrespect, and her arms wrapped around him, and her lips under his. When she finally takes another crack at him, he captures her. And after a brief struggle--the culmination of weeks of similar battles--she gives in.

And it isn't until that moment, feeling her in his arms again, all the fight fought out of them--all the blood and hurt and bruises and sore muscles they could muster finally inflicted on one another--it isn't until that very moment that she comes back from the dead. She's back. Here. Now. And his heart swells with just how much he missed her. And when she says it, admits it, melts into his arms, dear sweet Lords of Kobol, he finally feels the rage he had held onto so tightly for so long disappear altogether, like it was never even there. He wants to hold her face in his hands but the unwieldy boxing gloves won't let him. And then they fall to the mat, laughing.

"I thought you were gone... I wanted you to be gone. To never come back. I want..." he pants, trying to catch his breath. "I wanted you dead," he huffs out the confessions as if purging his body of poison.

"I always come back," she cuts him off, slurring around the mouth guard before she spits it onto the mat in a bloody pool of spittle. She rests her gloved hand against his chest, settling her cheek against his shoulder. "I..." she takes a breath and winces. "I always come back."

And he's really starting to believe her.


End file.
